


a witness just to know you're there

by Capitola



Series: dressed like a daydream [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Altar Sex, Community: criticalkink, Dubious Consent, Exhibitionism, F/M, Loss of Virginity, Masturbation, POV Alternating, Ritual Sex, Sex Pollen, Temporary loss of voice, Voyeurism, dick stepping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24203785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capitola/pseuds/Capitola
Summary: The pair at the altar stop, and turn towards Caleb. He knows the shadows lend him no cover, and two sets of eyes, one fey-golden and the other such a lovely blue, catch sight of him quickly in the dark. Half of the animal impulses in Caleb’s brain are screamingrun, run, run,and the others are suggesting he try and join in, and Caleb listens to none of them and stays locked in place.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre/The Traveler, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: dressed like a daydream [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767229
Comments: 14
Kudos: 106





	a witness just to know you're there

**Author's Note:**

> Title from “Roma Fade,” by Andrew Bird. The original working title was from “Cult of Dionysus,” by The Orion Experience, which I think sums up the changes in tone that the fic went through as I was writing it. 
> 
> Written for a kinkmeme prompt, though this one definitely got away from the original.

If Caleb had to pick a time that the evening took a turn, he’d say it was probably about a quarter to ten, give or take a minute. There’s a moment when they’re just drinking, making camp under the stars, curled up in clumps around each other - and then the next when something changes in the air, something that feels thicker and heavier. It sends a tingling sensation up Caleb’s neck and extremities, pulling, tugging, with a kind of suggestion that goes a little bit like _what if you took your clothes off and you and your friends started putting your hands in some very interesting places?_

And for a little while, Caleb ignores the sensation, ignores the suggestion because it’s a thought he’s had before, the kind of awful little thought that comes to you as you’re trying to fall asleep, or lying awake at three in the morning. He’s just a little loosened up by the wine and the soft firelight and festive air surrounding them, the anticipation of TravelerCon. He stares into the firelight, caught up in the act of resisting that he doesn’t notice the scene changing around him until Veth tugs at his sleeve.

“Caleb,” she says, her face unexpectedly close to his, breath hot against his ear. “Caleb, do you want to…” and she leaves off there, but the request is obvious, made more so by the tableau the others make behind her.

Caduceus slumps against the base of a tree, hair catching on the bark as he slides down, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Fjord is straddling Caduceus’s lap, his mouth pressing tender kisses on his neck. On the other side of the fire, Beau lies back on her bedroll, Yasha sliding a hand up her shirt. But — 

Jester had been with them a moment ago, sipping from a coconut and laughing along in her merry way. Caleb’s eyes dart towards the trail back towards the old altar.

“I should go find Jester,” he says, placing a kiss on top of Veth’s head as he gets up. “I ought to - not tonight, schatz.”

Veth looks as though she might say something more, but then Beau calls out “Veth!” and beckons her over, and like a shot she’s over in the pile of limbs on Beau’s bedroll, and Caleb is free to wander back off into the jungle.

The path back to the altar, the one they’d come down that very afternoon, is well-established, even on a place so deserted as this, and Caleb doesn’t even need magic as he picks his way along. The itch, the tingling sensation, the _urge_ hasn’t left him, though he does his best to continue not thinking about it, or thinking about why when he’s seized with such a desire his first thought is to go find Jester.

He likes Jester, is all, just a little bit, not worth writing home about. Not worth sitting up at night weighing the possibilities and implications of telling her about it. She’s young, she’s got a lot of time to explore these things, and he’s not about to get in her way. He’d walk into a dark forest with a half-hard cock for any of his friends.

Though no light emits from the clearing with the altar, once he steps to the edge, it’s lit up brightly with an unusual number of lightning bugs and luminescent flowers. He stops behind the remains of a low stone wall, and he can see clear to the center, where Jester sits perched on the altar. She’s not alone. 

The Traveler stands locked in a tight embrace with Jester, one hand on her knee and the other working at something along her bodice. Jester’s arms are wrapped around his neck, and her tail around his legs. Caleb can hear the sound of their lips on each other’s, only a little quieter than his own breathing. He leans a little further against the stone wall, and a piece falls to the ground with a soft _thunk_. 

The pair at the altar stop, and turn towards Caleb. He knows the shadows lend him no cover, and two sets of eyes, one fey-golden and the other such a lovely blue, catch sight of him quickly in the dark. Half of the animal impulses in Caleb’s brain are screaming _run, run, run,_ and the others are suggesting he try and join in, and Caleb listens to none of them and stays locked in place. 

“We have an audience, dear Jester,” the Traveler says, his amusement palpable. “It looks like someone wasn’t content with our little gift back at camp.” Ordinarily, Caleb’s brain would be shifting through the meanings of _our little gift_ , but currently he is too focused on Jester’s eyes sweeping over him. 

“We wanted you guys to be distracted,” she adds, addressing Caleb directly. “Needed a little alone time, you know?” There’s no annoyance in her tone, if anything, she looks like she’s sizing him up.

“I'm sorry for disturbing you,” Caleb begins to say, but no sound comes from his mouth, and he is left gaping like a frog. His hand flies to his throat, and he looks at the two of them askance.

“You can’t interrupt anything, you understand?” Jester says, and Caleb, closing his mouth, nods. She turns back to the Traveler. “I bet he’d be good, if we ask him to stay.” She says _be good_ like she’s talking about a puppy that won't bite.

“Are you going to stay and be an audience for us, wizard?" He smiles. "A quiet one, of course."

Caleb’s not sure if he wants to watch, but he wants to know what’s happening here, and in that moment, the two amount to the same thing. So once again Caleb, numbly, nods.

“See?” Jester says, and her eyes flash back to Caleb’s once more before turning back to the Traveler, as though nothing had happened. 

Jester’s glad it’s Caleb, all told, because she’s pretty sure he gets it. He thinks that the Traveler is interesting and important, and he gets why this whole thing is important for _her_ . And besides, he’s _very_ good at sitting and watching quietly.

The nature of the ceremony had been her idea. The Traveler had just said it needed to be an act of mutual devotion, that there were oaths and bindings and things you can do with blood to seal such a ritual as they were attempting, and she had said could it be sex. And he had kissed her cheek and said yes, it could be, and she knew that she’d given him the right answer. 

They’re not even at the magic part yet, haven’t even started the ritual. But good foreplay is important, or so she’s heard.

Caleb has an ideal vantage point, close enough that he can hear everything they want him to. Far enough away that he is watching and not participating. 

He watches as the Traveler undresses her in a painstakingly slow fashion, using both hands for each clasp of her armor, each button on her skirt. At first, Jester giggles nervously, then with more confidence. She catches Caleb’s gaze to roll her eyes, as if to say _can you believe this guy_. She begins to fiddle with the pieces of the Traveler’s cloak, and they fall to the ground in swift succession, leaving him nude in front of her while he’s still working her petticoats off.

He’s beautiful in a soft, effortless way - toned but not muscled, slim but not skinny. His hair is wild and springs off in all directions, but Caleb gets the sense that if he were to run his fingers through it, he wouldn’t catch a single tangle. His skin is eerily perfect, without wrinkles or scars, and each freckle seems an intentional beauty mark. Jester is quite appreciative of his bare form, running her hands over him, tickling at his sides. Caleb rubs his hand over his own forearm, pockmarked with scar tissue. 

When the Traveler sinks to his knees pulling off the Jester’s lacy underthings, he stays there, kissing a line up from her knee to her thigh. Caleb can hear it when he moves his tongue on to Jester, and though he cannot see _where_ he can guess by the soft, delightful little moans she makes. Moans very like the ones Caleb has fantasized about drawing out of her in his more shameful moments. 

Were Caleb to make love to Jester, he tells himself, if such a thing could ever be _allowed_ , it would look just like this, reverent and worshipful. He would be selfless, dutiful; keeping his hands on her, making sure she felt safe, felt loved, felt _pleasured._ The fantasy itself is not new, but the reality of someone else doing it, and doing it _well_ , is really driving it home for him.

Jester’s read about it, thought about it _plenty_ , but it really is different to have his mouth down there, his _tongue_. He knows what he’s doing, and she decides that’s pretty exciting, 

She looks over at Caleb again, and his pretty face is so flushed with watching them, almost the color of his hair. For a moment she forgets herself and almost says something, like he’s just Caleb and she’s just Jester and _isn’t this lovely weather we’re having, with all these pretty lightning bugs everywhere_? But he’s not Caleb now, he’s the _audience_ , and she’s not Jester, she’s the cleric, the _high priestess_ , and she has a job to do.

“Tell me how it feels,” the Traveler says, pulling off her for a moment. His eyes are glinting, curious. “Tell me where it feels _best_.”

“That’s nice,” she says, as he returns his tongue to her, licking along the side. “That’s good, there, and _ohmigosh_ ,” and he starts fucking her with his tongue. 

Caleb watches as Jester's hand clutches in the Traveler’s bright hair, and her lovely face is flushed almost indigo. Her moans grow longer, louder, crescendoing into a sound too raw even for Caleb’s fantasies to have supplied. Still, he can imagine himself quite easily in the Traveler's place, with her legs clenching around his face as she screams in pleasure. 

As Jester’s breaths go quiet and ragged once again, the Traveler stands up slowly. He playfully slaps the side of her ass, and she scrambles to sit back up from the altar, giggling. There is a deep trust in the look that passes between them, a tenderness that Caleb cannot help but be envious of. She takes his cock in her hand, stiff and handsomely arched.

“I want to be on top of you,” she says. “That’ll still work, won’t it?”

He squeezes her hand. “I can think of no better place for you.”

She moves to the side so that he can lay himself down, and then straddles his torso. Her breasts hang invitingly over his face, and he brings his lips to one dark blue nipple and sucks. She strokes her hands through his hair, over the delicate point of one long ear. 

He grabs her ass in both hands, and murmurs something to her. She nods in assent, and he brings her down swiftly on his cock. She whimpers, a shrill, raw sound.

“Does it hurt?” He asks, touching her cheek softly. 

“No, just...new. _Oh_ .” _New_ . So this _is_ their first time, and, in all likelihood, Jester’s very first time. Caleb would say that means nothing to him, but his body’s response would betray him. He breathes out slowly, still ignoring the churning in his stomach, begging him to act, and the growing stiffness in his trousers demanding he abandon all thoughts of propriety and show his appreciation for the show.

She rocks back and forth, slowly, experimentally. “Traveler, if you could just — ” She presses her hand to his hips, and he moves his hips up against hers. “Oh. Just like that. _Oh._ ”

He slides one finger between her legs, back to playing at her clit, (probably slick and engorged with arousal, though Caleb can’t see it from this vantage). 

Some last barrier, some final shred of decor that was keeping Caleb from touching himself breaks. He sinks to his knees, freeing his cock and taking himself in hand. 

It _did_ hurt, it hurt for longer than she let on but she doesn’t want to be thinking about pain right now, so she doesn’t. She rides it out until it’s only a distant twinge, replaced by this spread-out, fucked-out feeling. 

She wonders if Caleb can feel the way the air is changing, the way the magic here is shifting. She looks over at him to see that he’s finally taken the hint about how he’s meant to watch, and she loses herself for a moment, watching him watch them. His teeth biting his lip, those blackened fingertips stroking over the stiff head of his cock. 

Her god pulls her focus back to him with a hand on her cheek and a thumb parting her lips.

“I think you have that one in the palm of your hand, sweet Jester,” he stage-whispers, and she giggles, leaning down to kiss him. She can taste magic bubbling off his lips like champagne, like a crackle of electricity before a storm. Fuck, this is going to be _good._

When Jester looks over at him, when that grin spreads across her face, Caleb’s stomach lurches, but not enough for him to stop. 

(He wonders if she's committing him to memory, to draw later and show off: _here's what you look like when you’re getting yourself off._ )

He is on his knees, one arm steadying himself against a tree, and there could be nothing else in the world right now, for all Caleb cares. Nothing beyond the rise and fall of Jester’s freckled blue thighs, the slow buck of the Traveler’s hips underneath her. Caleb is no longer sure which of them he’d rather replace up there; whether he’d rather have Jester on top of him or the archfey’s cock inside of him. For that matter, why choose? He could have both of them at once, surrounding him and making him feel loved, feel worthy of something. 

The air is starting to taste different, and those animal impulses in his brain are going off again, sounding an alert that he should not be at the eye of this hurricane, but it’s so beautiful that he can’t look away. He watches them kiss each other, nip at each other’s necks, and he feels something building and he does not look away. 

She thinks this must be what it is to feel another person getting close. The Traveler’s motions underneath her are getting faster, his skin more sensitive under her teeth. Magic passes between them in every little touch now, pushing them closer to the brink. He smiles, heady and blissful, and begins to say something, almost like a recitation.

"All this," he says. "All this will be mine, and yours in equal measure. All this and more." He continues in a language Jester cannot understand, and this in turn becomes something like no tongue she's ever heard, a babble that crescendos as she feels him thrust up and come inside her.

There's a wave that follows it, a noise like the clapping of thunder or the ringing in your ears when you jump into deep water. For a moment, she's disoriented, brought back down to earth by the heavy, contented breathing underneath her, and the ragged, desperate breaths at the edge of the clearing. She looks down at Caleb and she looks down at the Traveler, and she thinks, _for me_.

He presses on her clit with two fingers and she comes.

Her second orgasm of the evening is nothing like her first, nothing like any she’s ever had before. It's like a wave that spreads out from her and sweeps up the whole island in its path, and suddenly the whole island is available to her to see, like a scene in a snowglobe. She's at the Nein’s camp in the woods, and she can smell the smoke of the campfire, and she can hear the moans of pleasure: Caduceus with his lips around Fjord's cock, Veth with her fingers inside Yasha. And she's at the sailors' fire on the beach, and she catches a few notes of the song Orly’s singing, can almost taste the flat beer on Marius’s lips. And she’s with the birds high up in the forest canopy, and the monkeys a little further down, and she can feel them feeling something change in the air, feeling _her_. And all the while she's floating, flying a mile high in a state of blissful ecstasy. 

From up here, she could almost be a god.

Caleb thinks he can feel it when the Traveler comes, a soft pulse of something that’s recognizable to him as magic but decidedly _foreign_ , unfamiliar. When Jester comes, he _definitely_ feels it, the scent of her magic filling his mind and overwhelming his senses. The flowers in the clearing open and close at the pace of her breaths, the fireflies coalesce in a spiral around the altar. It’s difficult to tell in the haze of his mind and the flickering light, but he almost thinks he sees the trees move. Jester looks different, almost glowing, almost like she’s not quite there at all. 

Then, like a snap, the moment is over, the power folding back to the center, back to Jester, who gives one last heaving gasp and collapses on top of the Traveler like a puppet with cut strings. He lifts her off him with an easy strength incongruous with his lithe form, sets her down gently so they’re sitting next to each other, legs hanging off the altar. He places his hands over her shoulders, mirroring the silvery tattoo on her collarbone, focusing on something until her eyes flutter open again. She looks to the Traveler, and he nods at her, and she smiles, as though there is a conversation that Caleb can’t hear.

Throughout all this, Caleb’s own release evades him, hanging just outside his reach, though not for lack of trying. No matter how desperately he fucks into his hand, there is a barrier he can’t push through, something stopping him from coming. He cannot enjoy the moment, cannot savor any of it. 

Jester walks over to him, legs unsteady and breath still heavy but smiling euphorically. He gazes up at her, basking in the unmistakable sense of power emanating from her. He hardly even feels her kick him: one moment he’s on his knees and the next he’s on his back. He doesn’t care. He hardly even stops.

“Did you enjoy the show?” She asks, and he nods, enthusiastically, in anticipation of what she’s going to do next.

She doesn’t bend down, doesn’t even deign to use her hands on him. Her foot comes down on his hand and presses it aside, pressing down into his manhood. He gasps, feels himself twitch and whatever was holding him back is gone now. He comes with a scream and no words. Cum seeps into the fabric of his shirt as his cock spasms beneath the gentle pressure of her foot, but he’s lost entirely in the sublime feeling that radiates off her skin. 

The feeling passes entirely too quickly, and coming down is much harder than the climb. She keeps her foot pressed into him until it hurts, and only when he tries to wriggle out from under her does she seem to realize. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, her face falling. There is genuine regret in her voice, a furrow in her brow. “Here.” And then she does bend down to touch him, a light tap on his cheek, and the throbbing subsides, as does the hazy feeling that’s been hanging over him since he was back at camp. 

He shouldn't be able to look at her in the eye right now, should be too ashamed to even consider it, but he still can't look away. The something-different has condensed around her now, or maybe it's eaten her and left something Jester-shaped in her place. There is a looser, stranger grace to her now, and the fireflies cling to her shadow.

Have her eyes always been flecked with gold?

“Thank you,” he says, the first words he’s spoken to her all evening. He might say more, but she places a finger to his lips, in a _shhh_ gesture.

"You should get some sleep,” she says, confidence returning to her face, and she’s right, he does feel very sleepy. “The world might look a little different in the morning." She smiles, taps a finger to her nose. "Sweet dreams."

Caleb rolls over and lies on his side unmoving, and he actively resists counting time, willing it to pass without his notice. The light of the clearing begins to dim, the fireflies returning to their usual routine elsewhere in the wood. He doesn’t see the two of them leave, but they’re gone now, jaunting off into the forest with business that he’ll no doubt hear all about in the morning.

(He doesn’t want to think about the morning.)

Roots and chunks of stone are beginning to press into his back, and he dimly considers getting up, but cannot muster the energy. As if knowing his thoughts, the ground and the vegetation underneath him softens and smoothes out, until he’s lying on a bed of soft moss, at the edge of a clearing, alone. 

With no one around to hear him, Caleb cries himself to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Much love and many thanks to [asterCrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astercrash) and [aunt_zelda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda) for their time and suggestions as I was writing this. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated ❤️


End file.
